The Danny Briere phantom offside might be the most memorable missed offside of the playoffs so far, but Washington Capitals coach Dale Hunter will tell you that a pretty big one slipped by in Game 3 of his team’s series against the Boston Bruins. Stephen Whyno provides the story as well as a video example for your perusal:

Here’s video of the goal that eventually resulted:

Hunter must not be happy with the hand the Capitals are being dealt as Nicklas Backstrom has been suspended and this missed call happened. Here’s what he said about it.

“[Officials] do miss stuff,” Hunter said. “The other night, the winning goal was offside … Definitely offside. It was a bad call.”

Oh, and here’s a devious little nugget: Whyno points out that the same linesmen who called the game with the missed Briere offside was on hand for that one. Yikes.

With all that in mind, do you agree with Hunter? If so, is it time to get some tinfoil caps with red No. 8’s on them?

On Wednesday, Danny Briere’s offside goal helped to turn around what was once a 3-0 deficit into a 4-1 OT win for the Philadelphia Flyers. It’s too early to tell what kind of impact Thursday’s controversial missed-call-turned-goal might have, but it appears that the Phoenix Coyotes were spared a too many men on the ice penalty before tying things up against the Chicago Blackhawks tonight.

Danny Briere isn’t the biggest player by any means, so the Philadelphia Flyers forward has become the leading playoff scorer of the post-lockout era because of his cleverness and craftiness. Apparently he’s good at sneaking by officials’ eyes every now and then, as the NBC Sports Network gang captured evidence that Briere was offside while receiving the pass that set up Philly’s only goal so far in a 3-1 game that eventually morphed into a 4-3 overtime shocker.

It certainly wouldn’t be fair to pin a potential comeback on that blown call alone – some will quibble with an icing that wasn’t called, eventually allowing Pascal Dupuis’ 3-0 goal to happen – but it absolutely helped to open up the door for a Flyers resurgence.

Conspiracy theorists tend to pile up against the Penguins, but any tin foil hat wearers in Pittsburgh might break them out if this game gets interesting as the third period approaches.